Just found out that Industrial Relations Chairman Bill Hembree scheduled a vote/meeting on SB 469 and only gave one hour’s notice of the meeting. Georgia Code 50-14-1 subsection d requires 24 hours notice be given so they are in violation of the open meetings law. We are going to pursue this and send out a press release if they hold the meeting…

This is a bad bill. Why in the world would State Reps think they should be the ones to decide which groups are entitled to First Ammendment protection instead of the U.S. Constitution? If this bill passes then it will give the green light to pass ordinances saying that the tea party or other conservatives groups can’t protest in a geographic area but the unions can. How would the Legislators feel if New York passed an ordinance saying the labor unions and Occupy Wall Street could protest but not the tea parties?.

What Hembree did was wrong. He did not want to deal with opinions that differed with his. He was elected to represent his constituents-not the Georgia Chamber of Commerce. He,along with a few other Republicans, have become extremely arrogant. I hope many Republicans have primary opposition. They deserve to.. The Republicans definitely don’t deserve a super majority. In tight races with Democrats, some will probably lose..

This is a season where it is an anti incumbent mood and Republicans are the incumbents. They have crammed through legislation without giving time to analyze it, raised taxes , passed a tax bill that allows the government to pick winners and losers, support a massive tax increase with passing TIA, have an extremely arrogant attitude by giving less than one hours notice on meetings, they blocked ethics reform and an attempt to cap lobbyist gifts (many view some legislator as pigs feeding at the trough) and the study that came out that gave Georgia an F for ethics. They carve up districts to give the GOP a super majority but what would happen if the Democrats actually ran conservative Democrats in some races that ran on ethics reform and other issues conservatives advocated?

“…Ran conservative democrats…”
Exactly. A question to our democratic friends, why *dont* y’all run some con. Dems. Is your party just too far to the left? Not organized enough? Burdened by the liberal national figures?

All I know is that in some parts of GA, they don’t really care too much about party ID, and would be receptive to the old school Dem message.

“All I know is that in some parts of GA, they don’t really care too much about party ID, and would be receptive to the old school Dem message.”

But the political power isn’t necessarily in “some parts of GA” (read: agricultural South Georgia) anymore.

The political power has shifted and now lies north of the Gnat Line within the conservative suburbs and exurbs of heavily-populated Metro Atlanta and North Georgia where just the word “Democrat” is considered a cutting political slur.

But on the other hand, your statement kind of rings true in the way that Republicans who currently rule Georgia politics absolutely aren’t doing themselves any long-term favors by permitting and encouraging this self-destructive “anything goes” atmosphere when it comes to ethics, or, in the case of the State Legislature, the total lack there of.

At this point there simply just doesn’t seem to be any conservative Democrats left in the state to run for office.

Heck, isn’t there like only one truly conservative Democrat, or something to that effect, left in the State Senate from South Georgia at this time.

Virtually all of the conservative Southern Democrats of yesteryear switched to the Republican Party, which is where all of the money, power and (so-called) prestige lies right now, just like the Democrat Party was the party in virtually-absolute power for over 140 years.

The Repubs know that they are the party that is in virtually absolute power with no serious, credible challengers from the other side, which is why they can literally do whatever they want at this point

The lobbyists from the Chamber of Commerce knew about the meeting ahead of time and were sitting in the room when the committee passed SB 469 out of committee. This is the same tactics Democrats used. Chairman Hembree is arrogant and thumbs his nose at activists and openess and transparency.

The GOP Legislators allow the Chamber of Commerce to run the legislature. A strong message needs to be sent in the July primary..

You are making a point that I have stated for years, both Parties are doing a fine job slicing and dicing away at civil liberties either under the guise of National Security or in this case, overt anti-Union legislation.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not a fan of Big Labor, right up until Management begets unfair or abusive labor practices.

In this skirmish to once again proclaim Georgia a “Right to Work” State, we have legitimate pushback on civil rights infringement.

“There was an Illinois statute that was deemed Un-Constitutional because it “makes an impermissible distinction between peaceful labor picketing and other peaceful picketing Discrimination in legality of conduct based upon the content of the demonstrator’s communication clearly violates the rights granted in the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

The Georgia Legislature is doing the same thing in this case.

Section 5 of SB 469 ammends Code Section 16-7-21 , relating to criminal trespass, would drastically increase penalites for criminal trespass . It would more than double the criminal penalty for engaging in peaceful protest in Georgia on any issue. It creates an exception to the rest of the criminal law by providing that someone can be prosecuted and punished for both criminal trespass and conspiracy to commit criminal trespass. Under Georgia law, a person can ordinarily only be prosecuted for one or the other. The Bill also increases the penalty for conspiracy to commit criminal trespass to a penalty higher than the underlying crime of criminal trespass . This would harm other groups protests. What if we were protesting at a parking lot of a business -this would affect us. What if we were protesting on a public area but some spilled on to a company parking lot by accident? Our tea party could face penalties that would shut our group down.

Subsection 1 A states , “a) It shall be unlawful for any person to engage in mass picketing at or near any place, including private residences, where a labor dispute exists in such number or manner as to obstruct or interfere with or constitute a threat to obstruct or interfere with the entrance to or egress from any place of employment or the free and uninterrupted use of public roads, streets, highways, railroads, airports, or other ways of travel, transportation, or conveyance.”

Notice or interfere with the entrance to or egress from any place of employment or the free and uninterrupted use of public roads, streets, highways, railroads, airports or other ways of travel, transportation or conveyance. This would have prevented us from protesting at CNN a few years ago. They are trying to make peaceful protestors criminals.